Tenemental common repair requires organisation and administrative arrangements between all owners in a building to make decisions about a range of common activities. This might be stair cleaning, back court maintenance, cleaning gutters, or other minor works. It can also be works of major replacement and renewal.
Whatever the issue, owners need a forum to hear everybody’s views, consider all options and reach mutually agreed decisions. This does not necessarily mean formal meetings. Some successful associations operate completely by e-mail.
See our guidance booklet on how to set up and run an owners' association.
Our aim as a Housing Service is to help owners meet their maintenance and repairing responsibilities, not to take over such tasks. To do this our policies and practices are aimed at helping owners, help themselves.
Establishing an owners' association is the first step towards achieving this.
Our Advice
- The long term future of your tenement rests on owners working together
- You have a better chance of achieving this with an owners association
- All residents need to treat each other and the building with respect to enjoy a good quality of living in the shared building.
Don’t get on with your neighbours?
Some owners may choose not to be involved in the owners’ association. That’s OK, as long as everybody is given equal notice of meetings, the points to be discussed and afterwards informed of the decisions made. Like any other forum if some can’t attend decisions can still be made.
Some may have an alternative point of view and these should be listened to and given appropriate consideration. There will often be different thoughts on how best to go about repairs or who to ask for estimates. Building repair work has rarely a definitive solution, e.g. large scale works can be traded for a lesser specification and more intensive maintenance in future years. Both are valid solutions.
If, however, owners refuse to communicate or cooperate, the Council may offer to chair the initial meetings to help resolve differences. In the long term nobody gains from intransigence as common repair eventually affects everybody and in extreme cases whole tenements have been demolished.
The Council may recommend owners seek formal mediation to resolve disputes before taking other action.
Our Advice
- The long-term future of your tenement rests on owners working together.
- You don’t have to be friends but you do have to work together for your building to have a sustainable future.
Read The Scottish Government leaflet .